CHAPTER TWENTY
R OBERT
We celebrated the first-place win with six large pizzas from Papa’s Pizza. Extra sauce, double cheese, and all the toppings a motley crew of teenagers could desire. When we got back to the store, they couldn’t resist taking endless selfies and staging as many TikToks as they could with the winning design, and by the time I offered them their share of the winnings, they were so excited I thought they might faint.
But I kept thinking about Anya.
A few of them did too, one or two mentioning how crazy that whole scene in the parking lot was and what it was like for them to watch that fight go down. A few mentioned they’d captured it all on video, and I watched it on Brianna’s phone, laughing at the way it looked to see us fighting one minute and kissing the next. It was very clear how despondent Anya had been about the loss. To not even place in the top three— when she obviously deserved a place— must have been horrible. Especially to lose to me. I understood why she was upset. And I could even understand her angry words.
“You’re the biggest threat to my business we’ve had in forty years. And when you open in a few weeks, we’re sunk. I know it. The Green Frog won’t make it.” No wonder she’d wanted to win so much.
After eating lunch with my “crew,” we broke down the float, and I allowed each of the students who worked on it to choose pieces to take home as mementos of their win. That made breaking down the float move faster, and by about four, I headed home for a nap. It had been a long day, and I was exhausted. I also wanted to be refreshed and ready for my date with Anya.
But was it a date? Or was it just dinner?
Maybe both?
Given our kiss in the parking lot, I knew whatever happened that night would be more than friendship. We were far past that point now, our relationship morphing from business rivals to something intangible in the space of one charged, intense moment. I looked forward to seeing what that evening would be like and whether we’d pick up where we left off.
I woke around six after a nap, jumped in the shower, shaved, and threw on some cologne before changing into a pair of black slacks, a white polo shirt, and Sperry loafers. I selected a bottle of pinot grigio from the wine stash in my kitchen and hopped in my car to drive over to Anya’s address, which she had texted while I was napping. It wasn’t far from my place—less than ten minutes through a few winding side streets and the historic neighborhood around what counted as downtown New Burlington. As I drove, I listened to a mix of French house music and tried to flip through any number of scenarios about what might happen in the next few hours.
I pulled up to her house around seven and parked the car in her driveway. It was a small place but charming. I could tell from the outside that she’d put a lot of care into the upkeep—fresh paint on the outside siding, flower boxes of red and white geraniums hanging underneath the windows, a new blacktopped driveway, and careful landscaping of boxwood bushes in the front landscaping beds. Most of the houses in Anya’s neighborhood were well-kept and neat, but I knew as a single person this kind of care and feeding of a house wasn’t an easy feat to accomplish. As I got out of the car, I made a mental note to compliment her on her efforts.
Anya opened the front door as I ascended the steps to the small porch. “Hey there,” she said as she pushed open the screen door. “You didn’t back out.”
“No, I definitely didn’t.”
I handed her the wine as I stepped through the threshold, my breath hitching in my throat. She’d changed into a white sundress that hugged her body before flaring out from her hips, and the V-neckline made her breasts look round and large as they strained against the tight cotton fabric. A pair of long but tasteful gold earrings hung from her ears, and I had an immediate urge to run my fingers over them, to grip her neck to draw her toward me, and to take what I wanted. But instead, I cleared my throat.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I managed. “I hope you like this one. It’s from a little place in Sonoma Valley that I like. Been there a few times.”
She took the wine as the door closed behind me. “A few times?”
“Buddy of mine owns an Airbnb out there.” I laughed at how snobby that sounded as we moved into her house. Casually mentioning things like this went far in New York City, where every moment and every interaction of every day was like a competition, but this wasn’t Manhattan, and I wasn’t trying to one-up anyone. “Anyway... yeah. I’ve been a couple of times.”
“I’ve never been.”
Anya crossed the small front room and placed the wine bottle on a glass bar cart in the far corner, one angled next to the larger TV console. This was the kind of place where the front door opened right into the living space, which ran the width of the house before opening to a short hallway down the middle, and a staircase leading to the second floor peeked around a long hall table.
She’d decorated the front space well, in a sort of French shabby-chic style. Blue and white Provencal wallpaper covered the walls with reclaimed pieces that looked like they’d come from antique stores and a large couch I recognized from Ikea that somehow blended the mix of old and new. It was simple but cozy, and I complimented her on that as she led me to the couch and the matching chair beside it.
“Trust me, decorating this place wasn’t easy,” she admitted as she sank onto the couch. Not sure what I should do, I sat in the chair beside it. From here I was close, but not too close. “I had to get creative.”
“How?”
“For the first couple of months I lived here, I basically scoured every weekend flea market between here and Dayton, looking for deals, and during the week, I was always on Facebook Marketplace.”
“That place is dangerous if you’re looking for bargains.”
“But my apartment in Chicago was tiny. It was an efficiency apartment, so I pretty much had nothing.”
I regarded the room again, taking in the décor from my spot on the chair. “You did a nice job with this.”
“You don’t have to keep flattering me.”
I turned my attention back to her. “I’m not. It’s just the truth.”
She laughed to herself, and a hint of pink appeared on her cheeks as she gestured to the glass tray on the coffee table piled with cheese, sliced meat, vegetables, and a bowl of green goddess dip. “Are you hungry?”
“More than I thought.”
She leaned forward and handed me a blue plate from the stack next to the tray. “Help yourself. I have some chardonnay chilling if you would like that, or we can open the bottle you brought.”
“Let’s go with the chardonnay. White wine is always better when it’s chilled.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
She stood from the couch and left the room, heading down the hallway to what I assumed was the kitchen. I chose a few pieces of cheese, meat, and vegetables and placed them on my plate, but I didn’t eat any of them. I wasn’t hungry yet. Well, not hungry for food, at least.
Anya returned a few moments later with two large wine glasses in each hand. She gave me one and resumed her place on the couch before holding up hers. “Cheers to your win.”
“Cheers,” I repeated, and we clinked glasses. After drinking some, I added, “I want to say again that I’m sorry that you didn’t place this year..”
She put her glass in an open space on the tray. “It just wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“It should have. Your float was great.”
She shrugged.
“I mean that. You and Morgan should be proud of what you submitted.”
“I am.”
“Good.” I slid forward on the chair and put my elbows on my knees. “Listen, I’ve been thinking—”
“Me too.”
I stared at her, a pit forming in my stomach. Did she regret the kiss? Think it was a mistake? Want to stop this before it truly begins? God, I hope not.
“About what?” I managed.
She regarded me for a long moment. “I don’t regret what happened earlier, and I hope you don’t either.”
My shoulders relaxed. Excellent. “I don’t.”
“Perfect.” She blew out a breath. “I mean, I’d be lying if I said that kiss didn’t shock me too.”
I raised my eyebrow. “It did?”
“Just been a long time since someone has been so... sure of themselves.”
I nodded as I remembered her words. “That’s the problem with you. You’re so... entitled, so arrogant, and so annoying.”
“I believe your words were entitled, arrogant, and annoying,” I said now with a smile. The blush that grew on her face was worth the risk of repeating what she’d said earlier.
“Oh man.” She shook her head. “Words obviously got a bit heated earlier. I am so sorry for what I said. I was just so upset, so shocked, disappointed, you name it. So, I’m very sorry—”
“Stop apologizing, beautiful.” I reached out and held her hand. “It was a heated moment, and even though I don’t know all the details about The Green Frog’s finances, I do hope the shop will continue to open its doors. It's a New Burlington icon,” I said. She sighed.
“Well, accept my apology. You are welcome here, Robert. New Burlington is a good place to land.”
“And I was serious when I said I was glad we reconnected. And I was only sure of myself because it was you that I was kissing.”
“You’re a great kisser, Robert,” she added, and the comment was almost a whisper. “In case nobody has ever told you.”
I moved a bit closer to her until I teetered on the edge of the chair, my body a few inches from Anya’s, every cell inside me activated and aware of her presence. Forget the food. And the wine. All that could wait. I only wanted one thing. Will she give it to me?
“I’m not sure you got enough data earlier to make that kind of assessment,” I said, my voice as low as hers.
“I didn’t?”
“Nope. One kiss isn’t enough to determine whether I’m that good.”
She inched closer to me too. “That’s a shame.”
“If only there was some way you could find out more,” I said. “Some way you could—”
Anya reached forward and collided her lips with mine, her mouth silencing what I’d planned to say as she enveloped me in another kiss. This time, we didn’t have an audience. This time, we weren’t in the middle of a fight. We weren’t cutting tension by finally giving in to what had simmered between us since our first conversation.
No, this time was different.
This time, we were just there, just us. There was no unknown, no fear, no concern that the other person wouldn’t welcome the connection. This time, our mouths collided in shared hunger, and the kiss deepened with a swift rawness that could only happen when two people were sure they wanted each other. I moved onto the couch and pinned her beneath me as we embraced, my body wanting and welcoming the connection that came from this acknowledged desire.
The more time I spent around Anya, the more I felt an undeniable attraction to her, and it wasn’t just because she was one of the only viable single women in a town full of families and senior citizens.
There was something different about her. Real. Kissing her felt... right. God, this woman. Such a surprising beauty with the fire and passion I craved.
“Upstairs,” she said. “Let’s go upstairs.” Her lips were swollen, and her eyes heavy.
She looked glorious.
So I nodded. There was no way I’d deny her. This was what I’d wanted all along.